My Surrender by Connie Brockway Read Free Book Online

travel over him with humiliating skepticism.
    “Yes,” he replied as he subjected her low décolletage, nearly transparent gown, and unbound tresses to a similar scrutiny. “Apparently Miss Nash has a habit of collecting…” He paused tellingly. “Shall we say, unusual friends?”
    The riposte brokered an unwilling smile. “Touché.”
    This, Ginny decided, must be the man she’d heard about this afternoon, the man who’d been seeking information about her but whose identity she hadn’t been able to ascertain. She hadn’t expected him to look so rough. Uncivilized.
    How would someone like him come to be associated with Charlotte?
    Her hand slipped under the pillow beside her, brushing the pearl-inlaid butt of the primed pistol she kept there at all times. “You’ve had a busy afternoon, Mr. Ross.”
    He regarded her questioningly.
    “I have heard from several sources that you have been inquiring after me. And not those sources who generally smooth the way for an introduction between myself and my gentleman friends. N’est-ce pas?”
    “I believe so, yes.”
    “Hence, I am predisposed to believe that you are one of our Charlotte’s papist associates—working in the same vein as myself but from a different approach, if you will.”
    “Same vein?”
    “As a spy,” she replied concisely.
    A flicker in his eyes. “If you are a spy, Mrs. Mulgrew, you are not very discreet,” he murmured. “What if I was a French agent?”
    “Then you chose the wrong men to query,” she stated baldly, “and would be dead by now. The men you questioned have allegiances to my friends. They would not have answered your questions without being at least certain of what you are not.
    “Now, shall we dispense with the verbal fencing and get on with the business at hand?” At his silence, she continued. “Why were you asking about me?”
    “As I have said, I am a friend of Miss Nash.”
    “What of Charlotte?” she asked.
    “I am afraid you may have involved ‘our Charlotte’ in some machinations that could possibly bring harm to her. I am here so that you might convince me otherwise.” Though he spoke in mild tones, a little shiver of apprehension ran up Ginny’s spine, causing her hand to curl around the butt of the hidden pistol.
    “Such concern for her welfare,” she said, smiling a little wistfully and darting a provocative glance at him. “ ’Struth, I envy Miss Nash her ‘friends.’ ”
    He wasn’t having it. He met her coquettish gaze without a trace of budding interest.
    “Are you her brother? Cousin? Uncle?” she continued. “Who are you that her welfare is your concern? And I will not consider ‘friend’ a satisfactory answer.”
    “It may have to be,” he replied. “Suffice to say, I am committed to her well-being.”
    It came to her then, spurred on by memories of the rumors and tales surrounding Ramsey Munro, the marquis of Cottrell, and Colonel Christian MacNeill. The Rose Hunters, they’d called themselves, young men imprisoned in France for plotting the overthrow of Napoleon’s government but captured before they could implement their plan. Their lives had been forfeit until Charlotte’s father, Colonel Nash, had traded his life for theirs. By way of reparation, they had sworn to protect and serve Nash’s widow and orphaned daughters.
    She scoured her memory for further details. The young men had been betrayed in a French prison by someone within their own circle, whether one of their own or someone from the abbey where they had been raised no one was certain. A few years later, the unnamed traitor had made attempts on first MacNeill’s and then Cottrell’s life where, during this last attempt, Charlotte’s sister Helena had stabbed him. He had disappeared after that. It had been assumed he’d died of his wound.
    It also had been assumed that the man Helena had stabbed as the traitor and murderer and this man were one and the same. Dand Ross.
    Ginny’s shiver of apprehension